[...]... common law2 6 is applicable to intellectual property and illustrates one of the themes of the book—that the economic principles that inform and explain property law can guide thinking about intellectual property law as well The principal difference between the law of intellectual property and the law of physical property is that transaction costs tend to be much higher in the former case This difference... concentration of ownership of the supplies of a particular good, and of all the easily substitutable alternatives for it, to enable the owners to control the prices of the property they own Neither the withholding, nor the disposal of the property of any one owner will in general affect appreciably the price of the commodity in question.”27 In contrast, property rights in patents and copyright make possible the. .. over the Ownership of Works of Art and Other Collectibles,” in Economics of the Arts 177 (Victor A Ginsburgh and Pierre-Michel Menger eds 1996) 28 28 The Economic Structure of Intellectual Property Law pensation from the owner for the costs of finding and returning the property. 27 That is also better than dividing the found property between the original owner and the finder Unless the property is readily... shift thinking about intellectual property from the creation of incentives to other economic ends See Kitch, The Nature and Function of the Patent System,” 20 Journal of Law and Economics 265 (1977) We question the particulars of his analysis in Chapter 11 but not its significance in the history of economic thought about intellectual property 32 The literature on the economic effects of patents is especially... because the reproduction does not deprive him of the use of his work but only of the exclusive use of it Moreover, this reproduction may take place in another state or country.15 A fence or other measure taken to enforce a property right may reduce output by restricting the use of the property, and if so this is as much a cost of the property right as the cost of the fence is Suppose the owner of a shopping... of Industrial Economics 249 (1996), and Chapter 11 of this book 1 The Economic Theory of Property The economics of property rights in physical property are now well understood, and its basic elements can be summarized fairly briefly.1 These elements provide, though only with adjustments, the tools for understanding the essential economic characteristics of intellectual property and for evaluating the. .. analysts of intellectual property to reduce the entire problem of intellectual property rights to a tradeoff between “incentive” and “access.” Because intellectual property is often copiable by competitors who have not borne any of the cost of creating the property, there is fear that without legal protection against copying the incentive to create intellectual property will be undermined At the same... A quick tour of the chapters will give a further indication of our emphases Chapter 1 analyzes the economics of property in general, thus situating intellectual property in a larger theory of optimal property rights Chapter 2 sets forth a general economic theory of copyright protection, which is then formalized in Chapter 3.22 We emphasize the difficulty of determining the optimal scope of that protection... the writer, the artist, and the inventor to create intellectual property, which none of them could do if, for example, it were lawful to break into a writer’s laptop and steal and publish under one’s own name the compositions found there Because the producers of intellectual property have these rights, a great deal of intellectual property would be created even if there were no property rights in intellectual. .. physical property, such as land, and intellectual property, an analysis of the economics of property in general can only be a starting point As the invaluable Plant pointed out, in the case of physical property the institution of private property makes for the preservation of scarce goods, tending (as we might somewhat loosely say) to lead us to ‘make the most of them,’” and it is “generally true that there . alt="" The Economic Structure of Intellectual Property Law The Economic Structure of Intellectual Property Law William M. Landes Richard A. Posner The Belknap. more. 4 4 The Economic Structure of Intellectual Property Law 17. See, for example, Symposium, “Taking Stock: The Law and Economics of Intellectual Property